Day 12 - Banana's Growing and Animals Rescued

So I'm a day behind on blogging.  Sometimes vacation gets in the way of things.  :)

On Monday we drove back down south again, even farther than Puerto Viejo.  Prior to doing that we took a slight detour and drove up in the mountains above that city and over to where Costa borders with Panama.  We can now officially say we've seen the northern mountains of Panama (woopeeeeee!!!).  OK ... so sometimes we're pretty easy to please.  In a valley below those mountains but still in Costa is HUGE field of banana plants.  I checked it out later on google maps and it's something like 3 miles long by 1.5 mile wide.  No wonder Chiquita loves this place so much.  :)

I do recognize that pictures do this field no justification.

South of Puerto Viejo is a place called the Jaguar Rescue Center.  It's a non-profit organization that takes in wildlife that's been abandoned, hurt, or threatened and tries to rehab them to return to the wild.  They get no government funds and operate strictly on the basis of volunteers and donations, the latter mainly while giving tours of the facility and animals 2 times each morning.  It's one thing to see these animals in the wild, but it's equally amazing to get a more closeup personal look at them.  The fact that it supports a good cause is an added benefit.  

Here's Tina falling in love with her first encounter with baby hollering monkeys.

Frequently if these monkeys fall out of the tree's they are abandoned by the group they are with.  This sometimes includes babies being abandoned by there own mothers.  The rescue center had about 6 baby hollers and 2 baby spider monkeys when we were there.  Each afternoon they take them out into the forests adjacent to the center and let them climb in the tree's and be free.  When the volunteers are ready to go the babies either follow or not.  Sooner or later most of them will eventually hook up with an accepting group of monkeys in the wild and simply not return.  Just the way things should work.

The Toucan shown below has a broken break from flying into a window.  Unfortunately that means it will never be able to eat in the wild.  That means it's taken up permanent residency at the center.

 

I think I've gotten confused in some of my posts.  The one on the left here is actually an Agouti.  The friendly ones I've shown in the wild are the Couti.  (There will be a test at the end.)  The beetle on the right here is a Rhino-beetle.  Other than looking ugly and scarey, the horn serves no functional purpose.

 

They have a whole slew of poisonous snakes in Costa including the familiar rattlesnake over on the Pacific coast and the also familiar to us coral snake.  They also have a lot of different varieties of vipers which are the ones typically hanging out in tree's and letting oblivious human hikers pass happily below.

 

There are only 3-6 deaths a year in Costa due to snake bites which is amazingly low given the variety of poisonous snakes and the number of field workers here.  But anti-venom is widely available at doctors offices and even pharmacies.  Although it's obviously a much larger country, it's an interesting comparison that India has between 35,000 and 50,000 snake bite deaths a year.

Although not as prevalent as in the states there are deer in Costa.  The one Tina is letting lick her here is named "Shy", just like one of our granddaughters who is also anything but true to that name.  

 

This hawk is about ready to be released into the wild.  An owner clipped it's wing feather too short to where it couldn't fly.  They keep it tethered rather than caged since it depresses the animals less.  The owl on the right is the largest variety in Costa.   These birds mate for life and this one lost it's mate.  She was so depressed that she quit eating and nearly starved in the wild before somebody brought her into the rescue center.  They've restored her to health by manually feeding her mice but have been unable so far to get her to kill prey on her own.

 

Besides the monkeys, the other most popular animals at the center are the baby sloths.  Sloths sleep in tree's most of the day and will occasionally fall out or simply come down to take care of there business.  The dogs that roam around will sometimes harass the sloths, sometimes viciously but mainly just for play.  Unfortunately sloths are prone to heart attacks and frequently die from this even if the dogs are just playful.  This leaves orphaned baby sloths.

 

 And now for the cutest pic of the whole trip so far.  Whoever knew a sloth could be so cute?  (No Tina ... we're not adopting one!)

So yesterday was another adventurous day that started off at 4 AM and had us getting back to the hotel a little after 8 PM.  What are vacation for?  More on that later ...

Vida es Buena Mi Amigo!!